Sunday, May 06, 2007

Remix: Blue Vitriol - Salton Sea

We were given a piece of sound art for the Arte Radio project to remix and turn into something new.

Some background on our song:

A few years back we drove all night to get down to Coachella California for the big crazy music festival that is held every summer in spite of the 110 degree desert heat . When we got there are 6am and tried to find ourselves a camp site, all that was available was a spot right on the edge of the Salton Sea.

Anyone who knows the Salton Sea knows what that means. As we got out of our car at our site we were hit with the force that is the smell of 1,000,000 dead, rotting fish lapping at the lake shore in small waves of heinous smells. Apparently this is normal for the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea was once a resort town, but for obvious reasons is pretty much a ghost town now.

Something about the original sound we were given, "La Voix Des Machines" by Guillaume Ollendorf (translated: The Voice of the Machines) reminded us of the Salton Sea. Disconnected fragments of machines of our past. Carved out forgotten spaces on the edges of our daily experience.

The way we attacked the project was by splitting up bits of given to us and dividing sections between ourselves and really focusing in on the unique timbrel elements in each. We then came together to try to find a way to put it together in a form that made at least some kind of sense. This ended up yielding a really epic, wandering ambient experience. The Salton Sea crystallized into musical form:

About

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, Blue Vitriol's Josh S. and Jacob Z. have been making music together for the better part of a decade. They have explored many styles, always trying to coax new sounds from out of the digital ether.